Simpson’s nationally broadcast success on “The Voice” has excited and cheered the community.

In recent weeks, tribal members have held weekly watch parties to see her sing. They’ve grouped in their homes and set up live-streams to play on projectors underneath carports, at community centers and once on pow-wow grounds known as “The Meadows.”

Like the rest of the tribe, Roland Hedgepeth, Faith’s father, has been watching.

“For a long time, sadly to say, Faith has kind of been the community hero, so to speak – heroine, or, however you want to pronounce it,” Hedgepeth said.

“And now – they haven’t forgotten her or anything – it’s just that now, they have somebody else,” he said. “A living hero.”

The Haliwa-Saponi community is tight-knit. Sixty-two percent of the approximately 4,300 enrolled tribal members live in Halifax and Warren counties.

“When you get around Hollister, it’s hard to know people who aren’t related,” Hedgepeth said. “Either closely, or distant.”

It seems “unreal” to Hedgepeth that over 2,500 people attended his daughter’s funeral, given that the ceremony was held on a Wednesday when many mourners otherwise would have been at jobs.

“We stand behind each other 100 percent, whether in a positive light, like with what is happening with Brooke, or whether in a sad time, with what has happened with Faith,” said Sharon Harris Berrun, Faith’s first-cousin. “In both instances, with Brooke and Faith, whether we’re blood related or not, we feel like we have a connection.

“Because, we’re the same people,” Berrun said.

‘That litle girl’

Instead of a city manager, the Haliwa-Saponi tribe has a tribal administrator, Archie Lynch. He was having breakfast at a local favorite, a grill called Cleo’s.

“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’” Lynch recalled.

“I said, ‘You’re crazy. … You mean that little girl, who’s in school up there at UNC? I’ve known her, her whole life.’

Lynch believes some gloom lingers among the Haliwa-Saponi.

“It’s probably not over for people,” Lynch said. “People got tattoos, because it was that important – I guess. It’s still like, ‘Why can’t they find anybody?’”

The Chapel Hill police have interviewed nearly 2,000 people and collected more than 100 DNA samples for its investigation. Every year on the anniversary of Faith’s death, Police Chief Chris Blue reaffirms that it’s not a matter of “if” a culprit will be found but “when.

Often forgotten

Efforts to reach Simpson for this story through NBC and family members were unsuccessful.

Many Haliwa-Saponi have taken joy in seeing her represent their tribe and culture during her televised performances, Berrun said. Her likeness is printed on T-shirts worn by supporters around Halifax County.

“Native American people have been through so much and often we are forgotten,” she wrote on Facebook the next day. “ I’m so proud to play a small role in shedding light on us and our culture.”

During rehearsals, Simpson described a childhood with Sundays spent singing in churches with her mother and father – Jimille and Mike Mills – who are “full-time” evangelists. Her Monday night performance of the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace” garnered high praise from show judges.

One judge, Jennifer Hudson, commented, “Woo child, girl ... the spirit is universal. Your heart. Not only your beautiful gift, but to sing from a place like that, to touch our hearts the way you just did, in your own way, from your own culture.”